Support

Edit or delete a message

By default, Zulip allows you to edit the content of your messages within 10
minutes of when you send them. Organization administrators can
change the time limit,
remove the time limit, or remove the ability to edit messages entirely.

Administrators can delete other users' messages, but can never edit the
content.

If you don't see the pencil () icon, the message content
can no longer be edited. You should see a file ()
icon instead. Clicking the file icon will allow you to view the
Markdown source of the message, or
edit the topic.

Delete a message

Deleting the content of a message will cause the message to be displayed as
(deleted). The original sender and timestamp of the message will still be
displayed, and the original content of the message is still accessible via
Zulip's edit history feature. This can be the least confusing option for
other users.

Delete a message completely

For cases where someone accidentally shared secret information publicly
(e.g. you posted an employee's salary), it can make sense to delete a
message completely.

By default, only administrators can delete messages, though this can be
configured by an organization
administrator.

None

Hover over a message to reveal three icons on the right.

Click the down chevron ().

Select Delete message.

If you don't see the Delete message option, it means you don't have
permissions to delete that message.

How deletion works

Deleted messages will immediately disappear from the UI in all
official Zulip clients.

Any uploaded files referenced only by deleted messages will also be
immediately inaccessible (An uploaded file shared in multiple
messages will not be deleted until all of those messages are
deleted).

It's important to understand that anyone who received the message
before you deleted it could have made a copy of its content. Even if
no one is online when you send the message, users may have received
the message via email or mobile notifications. So if you
accidentally shared secret information that you can change, like a
password, you may want to change that password regardless of whether
you also delete the message.

For protection against accidental or immediately regretted
deletions, messages deleted directly or via a message retention
policy are archived for 7 days in a
format that can be restored by a server administrator. After that
time, they are permanently and irrecoverably deleted from the Zulip
server. Server administrators can adjust the archival time using
the ARCHIVED_DATA_VACUUMING_DELAY_DAYS setting.